


A Bit of Summer Cabbage

by voicedimplosives



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Clothing Kink, F/M, Female Gaze, Kylo Ren Beefy Bod Appreciation Society, Oral Sex, Size Difference, Swimming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-11
Updated: 2018-09-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 02:36:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15962891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voicedimplosives/pseuds/voicedimplosives
Summary: cab·bage(kăb′ĭj) n.1. Any of several forms of a vegetable (Brassica oleracea var. capitata) of the mustard family, having a globose head consisting of a short stem and tightly overlapping green to purplish leaves.2. Any of several similar or related plants, such as Chinese cabbage.3. The terminal bud of several species of palm, eaten as a vegetable.4.SlangMoney, especially in the form of bills.5.InformalSweetheart; dear. Used as a term of endearment.





	A Bit of Summer Cabbage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bunilicious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunilicious/gifts).



‘Twas a brilliant afternoon for sea bathing.

  
The blazing hot August sun beating down on them, the gentlest of breezes blowing in from the Atlantic Ocean, the party made their way out from the sprawling gothic manse, which had been repurposed into an altogether charming seaside resort. Having taken a fine full breakfast — tea, not so strong or nice as what they might have had in New York or London but sufficient for their purposes, along with coffee, ham and sausages, toast and jam, eggs and oatmeal — they sauntered down from the grandiose entrance of their resort, across the street, and up the rustic wooden stairs which led to a long stretch of beachside boardwalk. At a snail’s pace they moved, enjoying the sticky, salty air; the passing homes, each one erected in the Queen Anne or Stick styles, a painted lady in pastel and jewel tones; and the company of one another, all full of vivacity and good cheer.

  
Their covey amounted to six: Count Benjamin von Solo Organa Amidala Skywalker of Chandrila, his fellows Poe Dameron and Finn Ŝtormoŝipo, former soldiers turned self-made magnates of the fledgling electricity industry — a motley trio they might be, but they’d become fast friends during their time in the drawing rooms of Manhattan’s high society, where all comers might and often _did_ rub elbows — along with the ladies: the inimitable Miss Kaydel Connix of Philadelphia, new money as well to be sure, the daughter of a casino owner; Her Grace Rose Tico, Duchess of Otomok; and of course, Miss Rey of Jakku, of whom not much was known in North America, except that she hailed from a small, far-flung village in England, that she'd inherited a great fortune from a distant relation, some Lady Kanata of Takodana, and that she was utterly charming.

  
There was a sense of freedom for these young people whose lives were of such interest to the hoi polloi of England and the European continent. They were clearly individuals of means and charming manners, and perhaps in the larger metropolises they would have been readily identified, but here in this provincial little seaside town, they were not known entities.

  
They had anonymity here, as they passed along the weathered silvery boards of the Cape May boardwalk, gazing out at the rolling aquamarine breakers whose white tips crashed and dissolved into a foamy veil upon the sand.

  
And what clothing they espied, as the party moseyed! For the gentler sex, it was an age of great seaside couture. The fashion of the day was a long gown, tight along the corseted waist and hips, with elaborately detailed sleeves and robust bustles constructed atop ladies’ posteriors, bobbing along behind them like dromedary humps.

  
Of course, due to the weather and the nature of the season, the gowns were all made from light breathable fabrics: seaside barège, muslin, cambric, gauze, cotton piqué. And the colors, too, were kept light, as was considered feminine: faded floral prints and stripes in mint green and lavender and periwinkle.

  
Predominantly, however, the womenfolk were given to dressing in white, with gloves and shoes to match, seeing as it was the color most forgiving under the midday sun. Silk and taffeta parasols, overlaid with lace and dripping with beaded or braided fringe, also served to keep them protected. Many wore straw and reed hats atop their loosely pinned chignons.

  
Rey and her companions were attired thusly.

  
The gentlemen were no slouches, either. They too eschewed heavy fabrics in the summer months: all of them, as far as Rey could see, were dressed in single-breasted suits tailored from tweeds and light cheviot wool, well-brushed, sporting plaids and stripes, and also, naturally, in heat-resistant pastel tones.

  
All of them, that is, except for her taciturn fiance, the Count. He was dressed entirely in shades of black, as was his wont.

  
Yet despite the entirely unsuitable and unfashionable nature of his garb, Rey could not help but admire the wide breadth of his shoulders beneath his black worsted wool jacket, how his trunk-like thighs, thick with muscle from his younger years spent toiling as a novitiate in a monastery, strained the seams of his trousers.

  
Distracted as she was by the cut of his suit and the athletic physique beneath it, Rey did not notice the man zooming up behind her upon his velocipede until he was quite at her flank.

  
“Oh!” she cried, jumping back in alarm — directly into the solid wall of her fiance’s body.

  
“Come back here and apologize, you pigeon-livered foozler!” Poe shouted after the man, but he was already out of hearing distance, and in any case, seemed entirely unconcerned about his misconduct.

  
“It’s alright, Mister Dameron, you—you can—” Rey tried to say, but she faltered at the feel of Ben’s large hands spanning her waist, his fingertips touching at her spine and naval as he eased her back onto her feet.

  
“The lady seems unharmed to me,” Kaydel remarked, a tiny smirk tugging at her lips. “Besides, perhaps, some nervous flutterings.”

  
“Hmph,” replied Poe.

  
“You did your duty honorably, old chum, by upbraiding the scoundrel,” Finn assured him, clapping his gloved hand on Poe’s shoulder. “Now, come, let us away—for the day is hot, and the sea is sure to cool our tempers and our persons!”

  
Rose frowned at her, from beneath her pink parasol. “Miss Jakku, are you—”

  
“Oh, p-perfectly fine,” she demurred, with a delicate little pat on her fiance’s hands, which had not let go of her waist.

  
“You may release her now, I think, Count Skywalker,” teased Poe, raising a dark eyebrow at Benjamin.

  
Rey heard him clear his throat, felt the hitched intake of breath which caused his chest to swell against her shoulders, and even felt the heat of his body through their layers of clothing, despite the afternoon’s high temperature.

  
“Quite,” was all he said. A slight squeeze of his long fingers, and then he unhanded her. Feeling bold, she stole a backwards glance at him from underneath her eyelashes, and found him to be — like herself — altogether _affected_ by their proximity.

  
“Shall… we continue?” asked Rose.

  
“ _Quite_ ,” mimicked Finn, in a perfect imitation of Ben’s deep bass rumble. A puff of air exhaled from Ben’s long nostrils was as close as Finn came to getting a rise out of the Count, but it was enough to make Rey grin, and the group relaxed back into the tranquility of the day.

  
Accordingly, they sallied forth.

  
And while they received many a polite nod or a courteous 'how do you do’, plenty of tipped hats and curtsies made in passing, there was not a single busybody who halted their progress towards the swimming area of the beach.

  
No interrogation about the wars Misters Dameron and Ŝtormoŝipo had fought in, nor about the Count's less-than-honorable past.

  
Not a single question about the Duchess's controversial crusade for better wages and working conditions in the mines of her duchy, which had of late turned many powerful captains of industry against her — nor inquiries about the altogether inauspicious beginnings of both Miss Rey or Miss Kaydel. They were a party of rabble-rousers and ne'er do wells and muckrakers and Jezebels… but that was of no concern to anyone here in Cape May.

  
In short: they were free.

  
Not so free as to defy all social customs, however, which is how Rey found her gloved hand clasped tightly in that of the brooding Chandrilan Count as she climbed her way up the three rickety steps that led into a bathing machine, after they’d passed from the boardwalk down onto the beach. The contraptions were little more than small shacks sitting upon wagon axles, with a hitch at one end so that one of the many horses who winnied and stomped at the sand from the shade of the boardwalk could drag the female bathers out into the sea. There were two doors to each shack, one facing the beach and one facing the sea. Once submerged in the ocean, the women could safely disembark in their bathing costumes without fear of being spotted by the other sex.

  
They were dreadful, these bathing machines.

  
“Is _this_ how it is done in Chandrila? I thought I'd left these devilish contraptions behind in Brighton,” she protested in an undertone, intended only for the Count’s ears.

  
He gave a sanguine shrug and a bow, then returned to his peers — with as much dignity as he could muster, considering how the sand shifted each time he pressed his large booted foot down into it, lending a whimsical lurching quality to his gait. Rey chanced a peek around, but indeed Rose had already disappeared inside hers and Kaydel, after giving a flirtatious wave to the men, closed the door to her own.

  
There was nothing for it then.

  
She turned and pulled open the door, shuffling inside the narrow space as best she could. So small were the confines of the shanty that care needed to be taken whilst locking herself in, lest she catch her skirts between the door and the jamb.

  
“Well then,” she muttered to herself, already irritated.

  
The good people at the resort had, of course, sent ahead her swimming costume, and it waited for her now on a hanger. The employees did not as a rule come down to the beach to help their female guests disrobe and don their swimwear, so Rey was left to her own devices in this respect.

  
_But nevermind,_ she thought, as she unpinned her straw hat and removed her gloves. _I shall do for myself._ She’d spent her childhood in a poorhouse and her adolescence in a workhouse, and although the women who lived there had often helped each other dress, Rey had always been something of a solitary creature and had often done the deed each morning and night with only her own two hands.

  
Oh, but it _was_ a process!

  
Once the rows of buttons on her half-boots were unhooked, she tugged off each and subsequently, her thin knee-high stockings, held up by garters. Next, the dress. The bodice came away easily enough, just another line of pearl buttons running the length of her spine that needed to be freed, and she could remove it. The skirt, too, unlaced and fell down to her feet with tolerable ease. Her light cotton camisole could be slipped over her head and hung up with the other garments, as could her petticoats. But then: the bustle, and the corset. These were more complicated garments, heavy, reinforced with steel, fixed to her person by laces and hooks, all with the intention of giving Rey’s body the unnatural shape so preferred by the era.

  
But even they were eventually dealt with, and discarded.

  
Finally, her garters and her chemise. By now she was feeling almost chilled, certainly refreshed — in comparison to the stifled torpidity often brought about by the many layers she was compelled to wear, now that she was a proper lady with a dowry and a fortune.

  
Rey cast a critical eye upon her naked form, something she rarely did. She was a tall woman, but fine boned, petite in her measurements. Her skin was darker than the fashion, from her years spent doing out-of-doors labor. She had freckles, and several scars that had resulted from farmyard and factory mishaps.

  
Hers was not a sheltered or pampered body; it might not have been considered beautiful by some, but it had carried her all the days of her life, through many trying times.

  
And the Count admired it. She knew this, although she also knew he had asked for her hand because of the sharpness of her mind and his love for her stubborn nature, as much as for her physical charms. He had in fact pursued her across half of Europe in the early days of their courtship. There had been their first encounter, a battle of wits that had played out across two private balls, one in Takodana and the other in Stjärnmördare, then a series of evenings where they’d conversed quietly, coming to know each other better, in the drawing rooms of Ahch-To’s high society, and later, his proposal, made on the terrace outside of Admiral Snoke’s Boudoir, a somewhat outre private club in London.

  
It had certainly been a whirlwind. And although she’d felt quite deeply for him, she had declined that first proposal, on the grounds that she was, despite her unorthodox entry into society, determined to live a good and proper life.

  
How furious he’d been, at her refusal! Oh, how he’d railed against her! Gone had been the reticent man of few words, who chose each one with care so that it might land with maximum impact. In his stead had been a tempestuous lover, who had all at once revealed how ardently he wished for Rey to stand at his side… and how ill-equipped he was to truly love her as she deserved, should she do so.

  
But all that was in the past. In time, he’d seen the light, and had reformed his ways. And when he’d come to her again to ask for her hand in marriage, after several years of reformation and many heartfelt acts of atonement, she had accepted him. He was, at present, still a most aloof man, but when alone he softened for her, and this Rey found to be a most amenable compromise.

  
Shaking herself from her stroll down memory lane, she reached out for her bathing costume — a twilled wool tunic that featured the latest trend, cap sleeves. It had been fashioned in the nautical style: navy blue, with white piped detail along the collar and hems, and weighted hems so that it would stay hanging down to her knees even within the water, as it ought. And lastly, the wool stockings and bloomers to wear beneath, plus a pair of cotton swimming slippers, so that no sinful flesh might be exposed!

  
Rey could still remember her somewhat wilder days, when she and the other factory girls would sneak away on summer evenings to jump into the cold ocean waters in no clothing at all. She longed for those days sometimes — although there had been many hardships, it seemed to her that there had also been more freedom. _No matter,_ she told herself, returning the straw hat to its place upon her hair. _I shall surely, in due course, find freedom aplenty in this new life of mine._

  
With that, she gave a hard rap of her knuckles upon the beach-facing door. No less than a minute later, the entire cabin teetered violently. So as not to be thrown off her feet, she slapped a hand upon the wall to either side of her. The bathing machine’s hitch, Rey very well knew, was being attached to a workhorse. Sure enough, presently the floor once again stabilized, and the entire thing lurched forward.

  
Just as water began to creep in along the floorboards, the rolling forward momentum halted. Then the machine was unhitched and a call came from outside, giving her the all-clear.

  
A flick of the lock was all that would be required for her to fling open the door, and step down into the tide. Rey took a deep breath, smoothed her hands down the front of her costume, and did just that.

  
. . .

  
Propriety dictated that the sexes enjoy the sea at a great distance from one another, so as not to accidentally lay their eyes upon body parts that were to be reserved for the gaze of future husbands and wives.

  
And yet. As Rey splashed back at Rose and Kaydel — similarly clad in modest bathing attire — giggling and reveling in the feel of the cool water rocking her to and fro… her attention began to wander.

  
It was true that the men, enjoying the ocean heartily in their own right, were at a remove. The matronly and stentorian attendants who patrolled the delineation created on the beach in order to separate the swimmers of the female persuasion from those of the male were truly hard at work on this busy August afternoon, and they were mostly successful. But just as it was true that they were far apart, it was also true that Rey happened to possess very keen eyesight, which rendered the span of beach and sea between the two halves of the party almost immaterial.

  
And that is how she saw, for the first time in her life, her fiance’s bare arms.

  
To be sure, all three men looked very fine in their bathing costumes. They were athletic, sporting fellows, the lot of them. Besides her intended’s younger years as a monk in training, he was also quite the huntsman; both Finn and Poe had spent their youth asea and in battle. Strong limbs and broad shoulders could be seen through all three of their costumes, and hardly an ounce of flab could be discerned on any of their waistlines.

  
Yet while the other two gentlemen had chosen _striped_ sleeveless woolen jerseys over knee length trousers, and looked quite smart as a result, the Count was clad in a similar suit… dyed midnight black.

  
“But of course,” she groaned. “He truly cannot help himself.”

  
It should have been dour, and passe. And indeed — he looked by no means fashionable. So why did Rey feel so utterly overcome by the sight of him and his solid slab of a torso and his burly arms? She was a cosmopolitan woman now, an heiress, and she had seen many cities, many parties, many men. She had even traveled across the ocean with only her handmaid!

  
“Why, Miss Jakku, where might your eyes be roving?” Kaydel teased, purring like the cat that had gotten the cream.

  
“Oh, let her look,” Rose said, “her betrothed looks rather afternoonified, doesn’t he? Even if he is, regrettably, all in black.”

  
He really did. Standing perhaps six inches taller than his friends, it was not necessarily that Ben was any fitter than the other men — he was just bigger. Everything about him was big, a fact that often left Rey feeling rather discomposed. The men were tossing a pigskin football around, and when Ben reached up into the air to catch it, it fit neatly in his hand. His doing so highlighted the corded musculature of his long arms, making Rey’s breath catch in her throat.

  
And his feet.

  
No. No, she mustn’t think of his… feet.

  
“He is a handsome enough fellow,” twittered Kaydel, a generous concession considering how feverently she’d encouraged Rey not to accept the Count.

  
“Miss Jakku?” prompted Rose. “Are you sure you’re alright? Perhaps that fright from earlier has affected you… “

  
“That’s not the only thing affecting her!”

  
“Oh, leave her be, Miss Connix!”

  
Rey could scarcely drum up a reply — the Count had dived for the ball, and come up gasping with what she thought might be laughter. Oh, his arms! She’d felt them, grasping her tightly in private moments and spinning her ably around the dance floor as they waltzed. But never before had she beheld all that shining pale skin, stretched over the hardened evidence of labor-filled years.

  
And was that an impression of his manhood she caught between his legs, where the wet wool clung heavily? What impudence, to even entertain such a thought! But now Rey could think of nothing else.

  
He was majestical. Rey needed a moment to compose herself.

  
“I… think… it is the sun,” she murmured to her friends, as she turned and trudged back towards her bathing machine. “I shall rest inside for a moment.”

  
The Duchess’s sweet face was pinched with concern. “Is there anything we can fetch for you, dearest? Some ice, perhaps, or a lemonade?”

  
“No, thank you, Your Grace, Miss Connix—I’ll just have a rest, and then I’ll be right as rain,” she said. And with that, she heaved herself up the stairs and through the seaside door of the bathing machine, closing it firmly behind her.

  
. . .

  
For some time she sat on the small perch built into the wall of the shack, hoping her heartbeat would slow and the strange feverish flush would pass. It was as if the sight of her soon-to-be husband — although not _that_ soon, as the wedding date had been set for Spring of the following year — in such a state of undress, had lit some sort of spark between her legs, and now she had taken to melting from within. The lining of her bathing costume felt damp, and not just from the sea. Water from the costume dripped down into the inch or so of water on the floor of the bathing machine. Although she had felt quite cool whilst swimming, now it seemed she was undoubtedly overdressed.

  
In a mad flurry of resolve, she removed the sodden bathing costume, the slippers, her hat, and the stockings. Bare once more, she examined her body. Nothing had changed. Or had everything changed? There were no visible alterations. Nevertheless — she felt wholly done over.

  
Rey brought her fingers to her lips. If someone had been watching, she would have been unable to explain why she did that — she just had the incurable desire to have them be touched by something. She slipped her tongue out, to have a taste. Her fingers were tangy from the briny water, and cool.

  
How unlike her loins.

  
There was a knock at the door, and Rey was just about to call out to Rose or Kaydel or the resort employee that she was fine, when the door leading the beach burst open.

  
Rey let out a little shocked ‘eep!’, then ripped the resort’s towel from its hook and frantically draped it over the front of her naked body. Standing in the doorway, practically blotting out all of the afternoon’s blinding daylight, was her betrothed.

  
He pulled in a shuddering breath, glanced quickly to either side, then stepped up into the bathing machine, and closed the door behind him.

  
The audacity of such a move, when Rey was so utterly undressed, left her speechless for nearly a minute. During that time, he simply stared down at her, waiting. Finally, in a scandalized squeak, she uttered: “Sir!”

  
“You are unwell,” he murmured. “Are you not?” His dark eyes drank her in, for there was not much yardage to the towel she held before her, and her limbs were entirely exposed.

  
With Ben standing in the bathing machine, Rey barely had enough room to turn, let alone adjust the towel. So she remained frozen where she stood, clinging to the meager scrap of fabric.

  
She coughed in an attempt to overcome her shock, then tried again to speak. “Sir, I—”

  
“Shh,” he hushed, “Quietly, or the ladies will hear.”

  
She gave a nod, then continued in a whisper: “Please, will you do me the kindness of averting your eyes?”

  
With one last drag of his gaze over her bare skin, so weighted by its intensity that to Rey it felt almost like a physical caress — he shifted, as much as he could in the cramped quarters. Taking care not to brush him, for he was still in his bathing costume and his bare arms were so tantalizingly close she was not sure she could trust herself if their bodies so much as glanced, Rey wrapped the towel underneath her arms, and tucked one corner into the side so that it was secured.

  
“Y-you can turn now,” she said, proud that her voice wobbled only for an instant.

  
“Madam,” he began, after turning back around to face her. But he seemed to think better of that address after a second’s introspection. “Rey. Are you feeling poorly?”

  
“Not… exactly.” Confronted now with his solid form looming over her, the light from the slitted gaps cut high in the shack highlighting the smoky topaz of his eyes, the terrible scar that marred his right cheek — a souvenir from his misspent youth — bright red from the ocean’s chill, he was… on the very edge of being too much for her to handle. Still, she sought to regain her mental footing, and added, “It’s only… I have never… we have not…”

  
The Count did not ever really smile, at least — not that Rey had ever seen. But at her fumbling, and her gawking perusal of his still soaked form, a ghost of a smile haunted somewhere around his eyes, almost reaching his lips.

  
“Ah,” he said, “concupiscence, is it?”

  
“No!” she objected.

  
She was a dratted _lady_ now, she could not just submit to such base instincts as lust! No matter how tightly the wet wool of her love’s bathing costume clung to his firm chest. No matter _what_ she could make out or not make out underneath his inexpressibles.

  
“Perhaps it is contagious. I feel afflicted myself,” Ben confessed. Tenderly, he raised a hand to her cheek and cupped it. His skin was cool, still the slightest bit damp; from fingertip to the heel of his hand, it nearly eclipsed one side of her face.

  
“You really should not be in here,” she gasped.

  
Paying no regard to her rather weak protest, his eyes drifted down to her lips as he muttered, “Perhaps a kiss could heal us both.”

  
Remembering herself, she clutched the towel more tightly to her bosom. “You think me a loose woman, then?”

  
“Is it not my right, as your intended? Have you not promised yourself to me?”

  
At this, she balked. “Your _right_? Sir, it is not!”

  
“I need—” he faltered, glancing at her white knuckles, “In _deed_. I shall go.”

  
Did she want him to go? The rising bubble of panic in her chest when he turned towards the door suggested to Rey that she did not. In a pitch far more high and frenzied than she had intended, she cried, “Wait!”

  
His hand was on the doorknob, his back to her, he was on the verge of leaving. But he froze at her words, and twisted his neck so that she could see his face in profile. He stole a glance back at her, then averted his eyes.

  
Rey charted his line of sight, followed it down her body, and ascertained he was pretending to stare at the floor. Experimentally, she wiggled her toes, and her theory proved correct — for at witnessing the action, he sucked in a sharp breath.

  
“You did not permit me to finish my thought,” she chided.

  
He offered a tight nod. “I see.”

  
“It is not your right to see me in this state… it is your privilege. And… I grant it to you, sir.”

  
Now was the moment, if Rey thought she was bricky enough to pull it off. Ben swiveled back to face her, his big body curled inwards. She could feel her reservations slipping away — he was trying to make himself less intimidating. Her sweet Count.

  
_Yes,_ she decided. She wanted him to see her. She wanted him to see. She wanted him. And with that, she untucked the towel, letting it drop down into the shallow depth of briny water that licked at both their feet.

  
“Rey,” he sighed.

  
Taking great pains to move slowly, he reached for her. Imagine the wild thrill that surged within her, when each hand landed on her hips and pulled her close! He bent at the waist, and that first brush of his lips across hers — a bit too low, a bit awkward, his aquiline nose jammed against her cheek, some of his mustache in her mouth — was still so full of revolutionary sensation as to send her reeling. Beset with desire, Rey whimpered into his mouth. In response, he groaned, his arms like two unbreakable iron bars against her lower back, and pulled her close enough for their thighs to touch.

  
She did not know why, but when the scratchy soaked wool of his bathing costume brushed against her bare skin, she clamped her thighs together as hard as she could. It provided some small sort of relief, but not nearly enough. Gently, so gently, he tilted her head — and now that the angle was no longer unwieldy, she found the kiss to more carnal and sumptuous than could have ever dared believe possible. It was maddening, the feel of his hulking body, his full lips opening ever so slightly against hers — even if the wool was serving as a hindrance between them.

  
She wanted him closer still. So when he murmured in her ear, “Might I steal a kiss?” her first instinct was to grant him any liberties he wished to take. Then her mind caught up with her body, and she reflected upon the incongruity of the request.

  
“A kiss?” she asked. “But—you already have.”

  
His right hand, warm from its time spent clutching her to him, smoothed its way down her back, across her hip, and between her legs. Gently — ever-so-gently, gently enough that she might be made of glass, his touch like the lapping of the waves against her legs when she stood in the sea — he cupped her sex.

  
“Might I steal it _here?_ ”

  
If she had thought her breathing to be labored before, she realized that the difficulty had in fact been next to nothing; now, now that he was touching her in this most private place, his hand firm yet soft yet warm but also setting her aflame, tarnation — oh, now she was _gone_.

  
“B—Ben?” she asked, gazing into his stormy eyes. By way of answer, he sank to his knees, and planted upon her inner thigh a kiss that might have otherwise been demure, were it not for the illicit locale. The opposite limb received the same attention, and then —

  
Right above her cleft, a place covered in crisp dark curls of hair, he placed a far less chaste kiss, his tongue sneaking below to delve within her folds.

  
“Oh!”

  
He pulled back. “Gamahuche. That’s what the French call it. Irrumation—the latinate description.” A pause; he rested his chin on the hollow above her mons. “Cunnilingus, Rey.”

  
The blush bloomed upon her cheeks before she even had a chance to brace herself. In truth, his kisses and his gentle ministrations had stoked it some minutes earlier, but now Ben was staring at her, his hands gripping the backs of her thighs, and she felt the heat rise higher still.

  
“I…” she choked out.

  
“Please endeavor to continue breathing,” he said, as he rubbed his cheek against her belly.

  
“Was th-this some chapter of your education in debauchery, from your adolescent years?” It was not much a joke, and it was very poorly delivered — her voice was still high, wavering. He was so close, so warm, so colossal.

  
The only reply she received for her pains was a wry look.

  
Something in her relented at that expression. This was her Count, after all. The one who had overturned his life, and left behind his dastardly ways, all for her. What was sin, to them? They were both considered vulgar and tasteless by much of high society. They had their friends, they had each other. They didn’t need rules.

  
Rules be damned! Her betrothed wanted to kiss her cunny, and she wanted to let him.

  
“Y-yes. You might.”

  
“Well then,” he said, setting his sights back to her downy spring-moss, and the delicate petals of her sex nestled within.

  
And what vigor did the Count display, as he renewed his attentions! Groaning like a shipwrecked castaway who had been given his first real meal in months, he licked at her. The variety of his applications! Small, coy laps; long, decadent sweeps, quick bursts of sucking that forced Rey to clap her hand over her mouth, bury her fingers in his dark wet locks and tug for hope of mercy — of which he granted none, grinning deviously up at her upon witnessing the effect of that particular method.

  
She thought perhaps he would comment on it when he retreated slightly, entirely winded, his large chest rising and falling erratically as he gulped up deep breaths of air. But instead, his eyes still riveted to her wet mess of a quim, he said only, in a faint voice of someone lost in a daydream:

  
“You taste of the sea.”

  
Hardly had she had time to digest this observation that he dove back into her, and this time — he played for keeps. Thoroughly did he ravish her with his mouth… was that one of his fingers, softly pressing inside of her? It was! But it was too much, surely! So fervently did she writhe, one foot fixed upon the little perch where he held it, the other leg trembling from her pleasure, that Rey was uncertain she would live to see the end of this exquisite rapture.

  
_Le petite morte,_ she mused. _And, what was it? Gamahuche. Yes, the French have it exactly right._

  
And with that, the agony of bliss fell upon her, an unstoppable cresting and retreat in which her whole body participated — although her core was, naturally, the primary agent. The feeling of it was remarkably similar to the roaring, unceasing tide outside the tiny bathing machine. Perhaps if she’d had her wits about her, she might have commented on that interesting aspect of the orgasm.

  
As it was, however, for a time — some matter of minutes, perhaps an hour, Rey could not find it in herself to care — there was only the sound of the seaside and her lover’s lips, tenderly bringing her back to shore. Words appeared all at once to be an entirely unnecessary diversion from _feeling_.

  
Rey felt resplendent.

  
Kisses, glorious patient kisses did he place along her person. The soft flesh of her sex, and then, an upwards ascent, to her navel, the terribly sensitive underside of her breasts, her nipples even! She should have been scandalized, but really, her whole world had winnowed down to his lips, and she clung to the sensation, her hands still threaded through his tresses, as she waited for her words to return.

  
“Sir,” she said at last, a breathy gasp.

  
“Hm?”

  
“In all my life, I have never felt so ruined,” at this, his eyes shot up to her, heavy brow furrowed and lush mouth settling into a frown, “... or so tremendous.”

  
“Ah,” he said. “You do.” No more, no less. But what was there to be said, when they had communed so perfectly with their bodies?

  
Must she really wait until the Spring to repeat this communion? It was not to be borne. It was cruel enough that she had gone this long without it.

  
“But what of you?” she asked, feeling a bit shy, but determined.

  
“Hm?” He was distracted, perhaps oblivious to her question, lost as he was in the shallow valley between her breasts.

  
“Your weapon, Ben.”

  
He tore himself away from her bosom to look up at her face. “You needn’t—”

  
“Rise, please,” she directed, her voice sounding curiously prim.

  
Ben did as she directed, and oh yes, it was easy to see now how his prominent arbor vitae tented the trousers of his drying costume. He stared down at her, breathing very heavily, his hands still resting on her hips.

  
“I have risen,” he informed her, as if she could not see so herself.

  
“Disrobe.”

  
Faintly, she could hear Kaydel shrieking. She could hear the gulls squawking to each other, the sigh of the wind, the thundering whoosh of the tides. She could hear children laughing, and somewhere, an ice cream vendor barking out an advertisement for his wares.

  
But she could see only Ben, as he slowly — painstakingly, as if to torture her — lifted the damp tunic over his head. And then, peeled off his trousers.

  
Rey did not consider herself to be libidinous or fanciful. She had a hard-nosed practical streak from years of working, day in and day out, to keep herself fed. Yes, of course she had, in the years since she had inherited her fortune from dear Lady Kenata, developed something of an appetite for fine food and a comfortably appointed home. But she had remained, in her opinion, a fairly modest, virtuous woman.

  
All of that might be history though, now that she was staring at the firm, sculpted abdomen of the man she was to marry. Now that she knew what it was to have his mouth upon her, now that she knew that the hair upon his unyielding pectorals was sparse, saving some stray hairs around his flat nipples, now that she knew that the hair between his legs matched that of his arms and scalp, and that his manhood was surely the same diameter as her wrist… she could not be expected to retain her vestal ways, could she?

  
Tentatively, as though it might bite her, she reached for him.

  
Her fingers just barely met when she gripped him, and that fact seemed to set her entire body aflutter. It was indecorous, this secret meeting of theirs, she should not be seeing him nor touching him like this, not until their wedding night.

  
_Rules be damned,_ she reminded herself.

  
His massive hand closed upon hers. Another rumbling groan was torn from his chest, and pressing her back against the wall, he all but crushed her with his weight.

  
“Like this,” he whispered in her ear, and together they stroked him.

  
_So,_ Rey thought, as her cunny grew slick once more. _It will surely be fire and brimstone for us. But at least we will have each other._

  
“Yes.” It was a moan, delivered against the sensitive skin below her ear, where his lips now rested. _Have I spoken aloud? I have,_ she realized.

  
“Oh, I…” she began, but he cut her off at the pass—

  
“Tighter, my love,” he directed, squeezing himself with her hand.

  
“Perhaps… I might…” she said haltingly, unable to state her intentions in the bold, direct manner that Ben had. Did it make her a wanton, to want to bring him to the same peak of satisfaction that she had just experienced? To be certain, what occurred in the bedroom of married couples could not be scorned as sinful or lascivious.

  
But they were not yet married. And this bathing machine was barely big enough for the two of them to stand — it was the very furthest thing from a bedroom.

  
He was amused, she could tell. Or perhaps he was happy. Or perhaps her hand upon his length was occupying all his thoughts, and she was reading too much into his expression. Still, there was a hint of mirth somewhere in his features, and it set her spine to steel.

  
“I want to taste you,” she declared, all boldness and audacity, jutting her chin forward and her nose into the air. She was trying to play the role of imperious vixen, but Ben did not quake an inch. He merely leaned down and placed a soft kiss upon her upturned lips.

  
“On your knees, then.”

  
He stepped back far enough to allow her to obey his murmured command. One hand she kept clenched around his manhood, but he reached for the other to assist her, as she sank down to kneel before him.

  
_Like praying,_ she thought. And looking up at him, Rey envisioned a future in which her husband was the object of her devotion. It was, from this angle, and especially after his own act of supplication, a very agreeable thought.

  
The base of him still in hand, the fingers of her other hand now interlaced with his, she leaned forward and up, and ran a diffident stroke of her tongue up the blue vein that traversed the underside of his bobbing cock.

  
His answering moan was something very pretty, a most enjoyable sound, and Rey set herself upon the task of provoking it again. It was not difficult — her fiance, as it turned out, was a most sensitive and responsive man — and after a few more licks in this fashion, she thought she caught his knees buckling. He released her hands to steady himself against the walls of the shanty. In a voice that was, paradoxically, both quiet and to Rey’s ears, thunderous, he bid her:

  
“In your mouth, Rey. Nurse it.”

  
Yes, it would be fiery perdition for them, of that Rey was sure. But how could she deny such a request, when it was precisely the act she so terribly wished to perform? Opening her mouth wide, she fit the mushroom-shaped tip inside. And as Ben had done for her, she sucked — as hard as she could, hollowing out her cheeks.

  
He gave a fearful shout, convulsed all over, and something warm — bitter, slightly, but tangy also, how right he had been, how very much it was like the salty waters swirling around her legs — spilled forth, filling Rey’s mouth.

  
“You may—you needn’t swallow it, love,” he said.

  
Stubbornly, she shook her head, and continued suckling at him. He gave another luscious moan, hips jerking as he released a few more drops of his essence, and this time she was almost sure he would collapse upon her, so visibly did his legs twitch.

  
Then before she fully understood what was happening, he had pulled her up onto her feet and into his arms.

  
“My girl,” he murmured, “my perfect girl.”

  
“I love you,” she told him — a vow, the veracity of which she had never been more sure.

  
“And I you, Rey.”

  
. . .

  
Later, they would need to devise a plan for sneaking him out without notice. It would go very poorly, of course — they would be discovered almost immediately by Misters Dameron and Ŝtormoŝipo, as well as Duchess Tico and Miss Connix. All of their party, Ben and Rey would come to find out, were in fact very aware of their amorous congress within the bathing machine.

  
“I might venture to say it is a very good thing that you are betrothed, you impudent malkin,” Kaydel would tease her, grinning in that way that could turn even the harshest of reprimands into a loving jest.

  
“I can only hope Mister Ŝtormoŝipo pays me the same kind of attentions, one of these days,” Rose would sigh, and Rey would take note of the longing in her voice, so that at a future date she might urge her fiance to have a word with the gentleman.

  
And although there would be jokes about Rey’s green gown and urgings for the couple to do the bear, although Finn and Poe would tease Ben about his gal-sneaking ways, the couple would simply let an indulgent smile pass between them at each bit of innuendo, and continue on enjoying their holiday.

  
But it was perhaps no coincidence that they both retired earlier that evening, and in the evenings to follow — claiming they were quite worn out from the sea air and the exercise.

  
Indeed, on their final evening in Cape May, as they meandered along the boardwalk by the glowing golden lights of the multitudinous attractions, an excellent supper of cockles and whelks shared between them, and candy-floss for the group after — Rey shared a secret smile, one of carnal knowledge, with Ben. He returned it, offering her his elbow for her to hold as they walked. She took it gladly, as well as the soft kiss he brushed against her cheek.

  
Intimacy.

  
Lust, momentarily tempered but not extinguished. Love, not even slightly dampened by the holiday’s goings-on, but rather — inflamed.

  
A furnace had been lit between the thighs of Miss Rey Jakku, and its flames licked upwards, up past her organs and her ribs to engulf her heart. And every time she glimpsed at Count Skywalker, accelerant was added to the blaze.

  
An Autumn wedding, then.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear [bunilicious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bunilicious/pseuds/bunilicious), happy Sextember! I know I probably mixed and matched slang, clothing, and customs from throughout the 19th century... this is probably terribly anachronistic. But I hope you enjoyed anyway. <3
> 
> Some notes, anyone?
> 
> Are you wondering about the title of this story? It comes from this [Broadly article](https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/j5xx44/complete-dictionary-bizarre-sex-slang):
> 
>  
> 
> _"A bit of summer cabbage (circa 1895)_  
>  _"Summer cabbage" is hard to work out, I must admit. It means to have sex. "Cabbage" itself is used in slang to mean the vagina, as has the "cauliflower," the "mushroom," and the "artichoke." There's also "take a turn among the cabbages" to mean have sex. Let's put this one down to a late Victorian slang joke."_
> 
>  
> 
> Fascinating, no?
> 
> Here are some more links!
> 
> Where is [Cape May](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_May)? It's a very cute shore town in my home state!
> 
> Were there bathing machines in [Cape May](https://www.app.com/story/news/local/southern-ocean-county/2017/03/14/bathing-machines-portable-bathhouses/98945096/)? Not really, as far as I can tell. But, y'know... artistic license. 
> 
> Wait, but what/why were [bathing machines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathing_machine)?
> 
> What did Victorians eat for [breakfast](https://www.nytimes.com/1979/03/14/archives/a-victorian-breakfast-late-and-great.html)?
> 
> Some more info about: the [layers](http://www.literary-liaisons.com/article042.htm) a Victorian women usually wore, what kind of clothing she would wear [in the summer](https://www.mimimatthews.com/2016/08/15/fashion-and-beauty-essentials-for-a-19th-century-summer-holiday/) _[I cannot recommend that website enough, by the way, it is fascinating and REALLY helpful, re: period clothing]_ , what kind of clothing [she would wear by the sea](https://www.mimimatthews.com/2016/05/02/seaside-fashions-of-the-19th-century/), and what [she would wear](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_swimwear) [to swim in](http://www.victorian-era.org/victorian-era-bathing-costumes.html).
> 
> Oh yeah I guess [men wore clothes in that time](http://www.victoriana.com/Mens-Clothing/How_to_Dress_Like_a_Victorian_Man.html), too.
> 
> Want to use some [Victorian slang](http://mentalfloss.com/article/53529/56-delightful-victorian-slang-terms-you-should-be-using)? Want to [insult someone](https://www.thrillist.com/lifestyle/nation/1800s-insults-slang-from-the-victorian-era#) like a Victorian? I got you covered!
> 
> Many thanks to [SaturnineFeline](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaturnineFeline/pseuds/SaturnineFeline) for beta-ing this! Also, many thanks to [luminousreylo](https://luminousreylo.tumblr.com) for the beautiful moodboard! <3 Okay, that's all from me. Thanks for reading!


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